What is Modica known for?

Cold-worked chocolate kept under forty degrees, sugar crystals never dissolved, the only chocolate in Europe holding a PGI mark. One of eight late-Baroque towns rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake and inscribed together on the UNESCO list in 2002. San Giorgio at the top of its 250-step staircase, Rosario Gagliardi's signature work and the postcard image of the upper town.

Modica is a comune in the province of Ragusa, Sicily region of Italy, about 63 kilometers from Siracusa.

Sicily · Ragusa

Modica

A vertical Baroque city in the Hyblean Mountains, rebuilt from the 1693 earthquake and home to a chocolate recipe brought from Aztec Mexico.

63 km / 39 mi

Nearest hub (Siracusa)

53,503

Population

Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Modica sitson the southern flank of the Hyblean Mountains, threaded through two gorges that split the town into Modica Alta on the ridge and Modica Bassa in the valley below. The 1693 earthquake killed roughly three thousand people here and erased the medieval town. What stands today was built across the eighteenth century by a generation of architects, Rosario Gagliardi above all, who designed the Duomo di San Giorgio at the top of its 250-step staircase. The Duomo di San Pietro answers it from the lower town. Both are part of the Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto, listed by UNESCO in 2002. The other Modica export is older. Cioccolato di Modica is still made by the cold-working method Spanish settlers learned from the Aztecs, the cocoa mass never melted past forty degrees, the sugar crystals left grainy. It is the only chocolate in Europe with a PGI mark.

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Gallery

8 photos · scroll →

Known for

Duomo di San Giorgio
Rosario Gagliardi's Baroque cathedral in Modica Alta, three-tiered façade rising above a 250-step staircase, built between 1702 and 1738.
Duomo di San Pietro
Mother church of Modica Bassa, fourteenth-century foundation rebuilt in Baroque after the 1693 earthquake, twelve statues of the Apostles on the entrance stair.
Modica Alta and Modica Bassa
Two halves of the old town, upper ridge and lower valley, connected by stairways and the long Corso Umberto I that follows the former riverbed.
Castello dei Conti
Hilltop fortress of the Counts of Modica with the eighteenth-century clock tower that marks the city's skyline, partly rebuilt after seismic damage.
Cava d'Ispica
Limestone gorge with prehistoric rock-cut tombs and Byzantine cave dwellings, ten kilometers from the town along the Modica-Ispica road.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Jun, Sep–Nov

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September through November are the dry, walkable months in Modica, when the staircases of Modica Alta can be climbed without the July heat. The Hyblean inland sits hotter than the Ragusa coast; afternoons above thirty-five degrees are normal between mid-June and late August, and the chocolate shops on Corso Umberto run cooler than the streets. October pulls back the temperature and the cruise-ship day-trippers; the Duomo staircases empty. Eurochocolate Modica falls in late autumn and fills the centro storico for a weekend. Winter is quiet but mild on the Hyblean foothills, rare frost, and the Christmas presepe trail in the rock churches of Cava d'Ispica is its own reason to come.